The affair has been dragging on for a long time, and it promises to drag on even longer: the collapse of life insurer Conservatrix. Ten thousand affected policyholders took a first step towards possible compensation from De Nederlandsche Bank on Tuesday: the supervisor has been held liable.
Conservatrix sold policies with a high payout guarantee, but with insufficient income. The insurer therefore stopped selling new insurance policies in 2014. In 2017, regulator DNB forced the company to be taken over; the buyer was the American Eli Global. Nevertheless, a bankruptcy followed in 2020, when the Americans failed to keep their promise to contribute additional capital.
Ultimately, after the sale of the policies to Waard Verzekeringen in 2023, the trustees were able to pay out 90 percent of the policy value to most of the 40,000 policyholders. The Conservatrix Policyholders Foundation is now trying to recover the remaining 10 percent and additional damages from DNB.
The foundation estimates the total remaining damage at around 55 million euros, divided among all policyholders. According to her, this concerns many small funeral insurance policies, with damages amounting to a few tens of euros, but in the case of pension insurance policies the damages can amount to tens of thousands of euros per policyholder.
DNB guilty of ‘fraud’
The reason for the announced claim case is: a ruling in February from the court in Amsterdam. It determined that DNB was guilty of “fraud” during the forced sale of Conservatrix. During the judicial review of the sale to Eli Global, for 1 euro, DNB reported that this new investor would strengthen the solvency of the insurer.
However, DNB did not say that this would not be done entirely through a capital contribution, but through reinsurance that Conservatrix would have to pay for itself. Due to this “unfair procedural attitude” by DNB, “no full debate” could take place about possible alternatives to the forced sale, according to the court.
The court determined in February that it is not possible to reverse the 2017 sale. However, her ruling may open the doors for compensation, the judges write – DNB has been ordered to provide relevant documents for this.
The Conservatrix Policyholders Foundation sees the ruling in this case – in which it was not a party – as grounds for direct compensation to the policyholders. The foundation hopes for a “constructive response” from the regulator; If DNB is not prepared to pay compensation, it will go to court.
DNB announces that it has “taken note of the announced liability claim”. According to the spokesperson, “the decision whether we will enter into discussions with the foundation has yet to be made.” DNB appealed against the decision of the Amsterdam court.
There is also a chance that the former American owner of Eli Global, Greg Lindberg, will contribute to further compensation. He has been sentenced to 150 million euros in compensation, among other things can be read in the latest curatorial report. Lindberg is involved in several fraud cases in the United States and says he no longer has any financial resources.
